Brad Maxfield's strikingly well-crafted poems are a troubled search for connection and significance in both the deteriorating and the beautiful configurations of the visible world. While many of the poems focus on the natural world, there is no romanticizing of Nature in the pastoral tradition, no reassuring or redemptive beauty intrinsic in the world's raw images. Rather, the speaker in these poems strives for an accurate assessment of just how much meaning is available to the naked eye. The answers, if there are any, lie within the interplay of the poet's jaded memories and his thwarted desires. --Brian Bedard, Editor, South Dakota Review